In typical domestic households, vast quantities of water are often consumed on a daily basis. However, only a fraction of the water consumed is utilized for food or cooking. In this respect, most of the water is employed for laundry purposes, washing, baths or showers, and in the disposal of human waste. Additionally, large quantities of water are also utilized for other domestic tasks, such as landscape watering, and washing cars. The term "grey water" is often used to define the major portion of water utilized in human activities which is typically drained into sewer systems after use. Particularly, grey water generally includes all of the waste water currently handled by sewer systems excepting only waste water from toilets. The most common sources of grey water associated with domestic dwellings include sinks, tubs, showers and washing machines. Additionally, the term "ground water" generally includes all water utilized for landscape irrigation and/or rain water which falls upon the landscape and typically runs off the same and into the storm drain and/or sewer system.
As can be appreciated, in most households, and particularly in large households, large quantities of grey water are disposed into the sewer system on a daily basis. As is well known, various regions of the United States have been affected by drought conditions over recent years, which has led to the implementation of mandatory water rationing and various types of water use restrictions in these areas for purposes of conserving limited water resources. One of the most common types of restrictions currently imposed are sprinkling bans on lawn watering and irrigation. As will be recognized, such sprinkling bans impose significant hardships on many homeowners with respect to the maintenance and upkeep of the lawn and landscaped areas of the property.
Though various prior art systems have been developed to reclaim the grey water typically disposed into the sewer system, such systems have not been developed specifically for use in conjunction with landscape irrigation systems and do not include the capacity to reclaim ground water. Since lawn sprinkling bans are common in areas of the country affected by drought, the potential advantages attendant to the use of reclaimed grey water and ground water for purposes of landscape irrigation become significant. Importantly, many prior art grey water reclamation systems are not well suited for purposes of providing recycled grey water for domestic usage due to the inability of the filters associated with these systems to sufficiently remove contaminants, such as detergents, from the grey water. In recent years however, advancements in filter technology have made more practical the potential for limited domestic use of reclaimed grey water. Though currently known filters are not suitable for processing grey water for use in food, cooking, washing, or bathing, such filters remove sufficient amounts of contaminants so as to make the reclaimed water usable for purposes of landscape irrigation without the risk of causing derogatory environmental effects. The present invention recognizes this potential use of reclaimed grey water by providing a water reclamation system which reclaims grey water and ground water for use with a landscape irrigation system.